Is a paradigm shift happening in history pedagogy at the moment? is ‘the source method’ obsolete and are we now onto brave new pastures?

Abstract

The author has been a history pedagogist for over 30 years and in this paper, she makes the claim that presently there is a new paradigm shift in the ideology behind history teaching. This paper asserts that history pedagogy is at the threshold of a new paradigm, that needs addressing by both academics and practitioners. Traditional history teaching basically looked at history as ‘a finished product’ the work of historians and it was the job of history teachers to pass on the facts and information. This pedagogy was seriously challenged in the 1960s and 70s in England (Burston & Green, 1962; Price, 1969; Coltham & Fines, 1971). A new history pedagogy came into existence, what was then called ‘New History’ and which later became known as ‘the Source Method’. The dichotomy of facts/information or skills/concepts in this approach in history teaching was in turn challenged in the early 21st century mainly by Christine Counsell. Counsell refined ‘the Source Method’ by showing how both Substantive knowledge (facts/information) and Procedural knowledge (thinking skills/concepts) were important forms of knowledge that needed to be both addressed in the classroom (Counsell, 2004). On the whole, up to a decade ago this was basically the situation in history teaching and the paradigm shift from traditional history teaching to ‘the Source method’ felt complete, at least in the pedagogists’ mind, how much that translated to real history classrooms can vary considerably (Euroclio,1998; CHE report, 2013; OHTE, 2023).

However, for some time now, the author has been feeling that a new paradigm seems to be pushing ‘the Source Method’ out and bringing in new ideas and notions. Postmodernist ideas have long established that ‘History is not the Past’ (Jenkins, 1991) but now this notion seems to have been picked up by some history pedagogists as something which needs to be consistently at the forefront of teachers’ thinking in the history classroom; to achieve what has been called ‘Criterialist’ thinking. From 2010 onwards Liliana Maggioni’s work (Maggioni, 2004; 2009; 2010) becomes very significant, with many history pedagogy researchers insisting on pushing for history-specific epistemic beliefs in the classroom (see for example Voet, M. & De Wever, B.,2016; Stoel, G. et. al., 2017; Karlsson, P., 2018; Wansink, B., 2016). This paper argues that it is time for an academic debate on whether this new challenge to history teaching is the best way forward in history pedagogy.